SystemC addresses the need for a system design and verification
language that spans hardware and software. It is a language built
in standard C++ by extending the language with the use of class
libraries. The language is particularly suited to model system's
partitioning, to evaluate and verify the assignment of blocks to
either hardware or software implementations, and to architect and
measure the interactions between and among functional blocks. Leading
companies in the intellectual property (IP), electronic design
automation (EDA), semiconductor, electronic systems, and embedded
software industries currently use SystemC for architectural
exploration, to deliver high-performance hardware blocks at various
levels of abstraction and to develop virtual platforms for
hardware/software co-design. SystemC has been standardized by
the Open SystemC Initiative (OSCI) and Accellera Systems Initiative
and ratified as IEEE Std. 1666-2011.

For enabling pthreads set the environment variable PTHREAD=yes.